The Next Generation Science Standards: 4. Science and Engineering Practices

Professor Michael WysessionDepartment of Earth and Planetary Sciences

Washington University, St. Louis, MOmichael@seismo.wustl.edu

The Scientific Method

The scientific method is a way to ask and answer scientific questions by making observations and doing experiments.

The steps of the scientific method are to: • Ask a Question• Do Background Research• Construct a Hypothesis• Test Your Hypothesis by Doing an Experiment• Analyze Your Data and Draw a Conclusion• Communicate Your Results

The Scientific Method

The scientific method is a way to ask and answer scientific questions by making observations and doing experiments.

The steps of the scientific method are to: • Ask a Question• Do Background Research• Construct a Hypothesis• Test Your Hypothesis by Doing an Experiment• Analyze Your Data and Draw a Conclusion• Communicate Your Results

The Practices: Justification

An Extension of “Inquiry-Based” Learning:

Because the term “inquiry,” extensively referred to in previous standards documents, has been interpreted over time in many different ways throughout the science education community, part of our intent in articulating the practices in Dimension 1 is to better specify what is meant by inquiry in science and the range of cognitive, social, and physical practices that it requires.…..

The Practices: Justification

An Extension of “Inquiry-Based” Learning:

…. As in all inquiry-based approaches to science teaching, our expectation is that students will themselves engage in the practices and not merely learn about them secondhand.

Students cannot comprehend scientific practices, nor fully appreciate the nature of scientific knowledge itself, without directly experiencing those practices for themselves.

The Practices: Justification

Connection between Content and Practice:

State standards have traditionally represented Practices and Core Ideas as two separate entities.

Observations from science education researchers have indicated that these two dimensions are, at best, taught separately or the Practices are not taught at all.

This is neither useful nor practical, especially given that in the real world science and engineering is always a combination of content and practice.

The Practices: Justification

Connection between Content and Practice:

• It is important to note that the Scientific and Engineering Practices are not teaching strategies -- they are indicators of achievement as well as important learning goals in their own right.

• As such, the Framework and NGSS ensure the Practices are not treated as afterthoughts.

• Coupling practice with content gives the learning context, whereas practices alone are activities and content alone is memorization.

• It is through integration that science begins to make sense and allows student to apply the material.

The 8 Practices

The eight practices of science and engineering, the Framework identifies as essential for all students to learn, and describes in detail, are listed below:

1. Asking questions (for science) and defining problems (for engineering)2. Developing and using models3. Planning and carrying out investigations4. Analyzing and interpreting data5. Using mathematics and computational thinking6. Constructing explanations (for science) and designing solutions (for engineering)7. Engaging in argument from evidence8. Obtaining, evaluating, and communicating information

The Practices: Guiding Principles

Guiding Principles:1. Students in grades K-12 should engage in all eight practices over each grade band

The Practices: Guiding Principles

Guiding Principles:1. Students in grades K-12 should engage in all eight practices over each grade band 2. Practices grow in complexity and sophistication across the grades

Developing and Using Models

The Practices: Guiding Principles

Guiding Principles:1. Students in grades K-12 should engage in all eight practices over each grade band 2. Practices grow in complexity and sophistication across the grades 3. Each practice may reflect science or engineering

The Practices: Guiding Principles

Guiding Principles:1. Students in grades K-12 should engage in all eight practices over each grade band 2. Practices grow in complexity and sophistication across the grades 3. Each practice may reflect science or engineering 4. Practices represent what students are expected to do, and are not teaching methods or curriculum

The Practices: Guiding Principles

Guiding Principles:1. Students in grades K-12 should engage in all eight practices over each grade band 2. Practices grow in complexity and sophistication across the grades 3. Each practice may reflect science or engineering 4. Practices represent what students are expected to do, and are not teaching methods or curriculum 5. The eight practices are not separate; they intentionally overlap and interconnect

The Practices: Guiding Principles

Guiding Principles:1. Students in grades K-12 should engage in all eight practices over each grade band 2. Practices grow in complexity and sophistication across the grades 3. Each practice may reflect science or engineering 4. Practices represent what students are expected to do, and are not teaching methods or curriculum 5. The eight practices are not separate; they intentionally overlap and interconnect 6. Performance expectations focus on some but not all capabilities associated with a practice

The Practices: Guiding Principles

Guiding Principles:1. Students in grades K-12 should engage in all eight practices over each grade band 2. Practices grow in complexity and sophistication across the grades 3. Each practice may reflect science or engineering 4. Practices represent what students are expected to do, and are not teaching methods or curriculum 5. The eight practices are not separate; they intentionally overlap and interconnect 6. Performance expectations focus on some but not all capabilities associated with a practice7. Students need only focus on one aspect of a practice, not the full grade or grade-band description

Developing and Using Models

Practice 1: Asking Questions and Defining Problems

Students at any grade level should be able to ask questions of each other about the texts they read, the features of the phenomena they observe, and the conclusions they draw from their models or scientific investigations.

For engineering, they should ask questions to define the problem to be solved and to elicit ideas that lead to the constraints and specifications for its solution. (NRC Framework 2012, p. 56)

Practice 1: Asking Questions and Defining Problems

Practice 2: Developing and Using Models

Modeling can begin in the earliest grades, with students’ models progressing from concrete “pictures” and/or physical scale models (e.g., a toy car) to more abstract representations of relevant relationships in later grades, such as a diagram representing forces on a particular object in a system. (NRC Framework, 2012, p. 58)

Practice 2: Developing and Using Models

Practice 3: Planning and Carrying Out Investigations

Students should have opportunities to plan and carry out several different kinds of investigations during their K-12 years.

At all levels, they should engage in investigations that range from those structured by the teacher—in order to expose an issue or question that they would be unlikely to explore on their own (e.g., measuring specific properties of materials)—to those that emerge from students’ own questions. (NRC Framework, 2012, p. 61)

Practice 3: Planning and Carrying Out Investigations

Practice 3: Planning and Carrying Out Investigations

Practice 4: Analyzing and Interpreting Data

Once collected, data must be presented in a form that can reveal any patterns and relationships and that allows results to be communicated to others.

Because raw data as such have little meaning, a major practice of scientists is to organize and interpret data through tabulating, graphing, or statistical analysis.

Such analysis can bring out the meaning of data—and their relevance—so that they may be used as evidence.

Engineers, too, make decisions based on evidence that a given design will work; they rarely rely on trial and error. (NRC Framework, 2012, p. 61-62)

Practice 4: Analyzing and Interpreting Data

Practice 5: Using Mathematics and Computational Thinking

Although there are differences in how mathematics and computational thinking are applied in science and in engineering, mathematics often brings these two fields together by enabling engineers to apply the mathematical form of scientific theories and by enabling scientists to use powerful information technologies designed by engineers.

Both kinds of professionals can thereby accomplish investigations and analyses and build complex models, which might otherwise be out of the question. (NRC Framework, 2012, p. 65)

Practice 5: Using Mathematics and Computational Thinking

Practice 6: Constructing Explanations and Designing Solutions

The goal of science is the construction of theories that provide explanatory accounts of the world.

A theory becomes accepted when it has multiple lines of empirical evidence and greater explanatory power of phenomena than previous theories….

Practice 6: Constructing Explanations and Designing Solutions

….In engineering, the goal is a design rather than an explanation. The process of developing a design is iterative and systematic, as is the process of developing an explanation or a theory in science. Engineers’ activities, however, have elements that are distinct from those of scientists. These elements include specifying constraints and criteria for desired qualities of the solution, developing a design plan, producing and testing models or prototypes, selecting among alternative design features to optimize the achievement of design criteria, and refining design ideas based on the performance of a prototype or simulation. (NRC Framework, 2012, p. 68-69)

Practice 6: Constructing Explanations and Designing Solutions

Practice 7: Engaging in Argument from Evidence

The study of science and engineering should produce a sense of the process of argument necessary for advancing and defending a new idea or an explanation of a phenomenon and the norms for conducting such arguments.

In that spirit, students should argue for the explanations they construct, defend their interpretations of the associated data, and advocate for the designs they propose. (NRC Framework, 2012, p. 73)

Practice 7: Engaging in Argument from Evidence

Practice 8: Obtaining, Evaluating, and Communicating Information

Any education in science and engineering needs to develop students’ ability to read and produce domain-specific text.

As such, every science or engineering lesson is in part a language lesson, particularly reading and producing the genres of texts that are intrinsic to science and engineering. (NRC Framework, 2012, p. 76)

Practice 8: Obtaining, Evaluating, and Communicating Information